10 Responses to Bike News Roundup: If you drove a shopping cart like a car

Yet another stupid “I feel better not wearing a helmet” article. With a terrible tag line, “don’t wear a helmet unless you are really into bicycling.” You know it’s the newbies who should really be wearing helmets. They aren’t in tune with traffic, they ride on bike paths (where most accidents occur) they ride in the door zone, they believe sharrows etc etc.

Yes a helmet is not designed to prevent an accident. That’s what things like mirrors and lights and reflective clothing do… prevent the accident in the first place. A helmet is designed to give you one last chance at not becoming a human organ donor. If you are fine with it being the default state… no helmet, no special signup for organ donation required. I’m fine with that.

You know while I don’t condone violence by motor vehicle, running a bike thief off the road and then smacking him around and the fact that it really was the thief doesn’t “sound” all that bad. HOWEVER, it could easily have been the wrong person. The thief could have been mentally ill, etc, etc. and in general the eye for an eye justice doesn’t work in the long run at all.

A “commercial greenway” sounds like a more formal version of the sort of local main street common outside the US, and in some US towns where such streets somehow weren’t swept away into roads where through traffic trumps everything.

Some of the goals here are similar to Seattle’s with Bell Street, though I think we really missed a lot of opportunities there (if you could bike up the hill as well as down, Bell could become a clear cycling corridor in a part of town that lacks one, and then all those bike racks that were just installed might actually get used). And spent a bunch of money missing them. The Ave works like this already; so does Ballard Ave.

There are tons of places around here something similar might fit, from the lower-traffic streets of SLU and Pioneer Square to Queen Anne Ave up on top of the hill to The Landing (Renton) and Mill Creek Town Center (whatever their flaws and limitations, they aren’t going anywhere, they’re trying to put housing next to businesses, and they have some measure of local streets). But there’s one place it fits better than any other: NE 65th between 20th and 25th.

The fact that they are sticking to the 10 mph speed limit design is just dumb. People will still use Westlake/Parking Lot/Sidewalk, where you can go much faster (yes, even the sidewalk). This will then be pointed to by anti-cycle facility people as a failure and reason why we shouldn’t spend money on cycle facilities anymore.

At this point, I would honestly take my chances with Option A, than deal with the joke that the low speed Option B has become.

The law says that I’m allowed to ride my bike on Westlake, but driver behavior makes it clear I’m not welcome there unless I can ride faster than 30 MPH (I don’t know anyone that can ride faster than 30 MPH). Now Seattle wants to build a cycletrack next to it where you’re not welcome unless you’re riding slower than 10 MPH.

The vast majority of cycling performed by people older than 10 years old has a cruising speed between 10 and 30 MPH. This is Cedar River Trail-level nonsense.

I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but… any update on the construction of the Ballard missing link “band aid” that was announced 18 months ago but remains in a perpetual half-finished, confusing state? The last update was that the project was to have been finished by the end of April, but nothing has happened. What’s so frustrating is that this was such a small project, involving little more than paint, pavement patching, and new signage. Meanwhile, we’ve seen the quick installation of a new, largely superfluous two-block cycletrack in the U District while this ongoing project remains in a state that’s arguably more confusing than it was before the project started.

I still haven’t been able to get an answer on whether there will be an all-way stop at the intersection of NW 45th/46th/Shilshole. I’ve sent several emails to SDOT about this but haven’t heard anything back. Anyone know?

“◾2nd person dies from SUV crash at Lake Sammamish house | The Today File | Seattle Times – This story is so devastating. This is the stuff of nightmares. A reminder that cars are inherently dangerous things that amplify people’s mistakes (especially big mistakes like DUI). Just an awful, terrible thing to happen to a family.”
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From the linked story-
“The driver, whose vehicle plowed through the house and caught on a deck before going entirely into Lake Sammamish, was arrested Friday and booked into King County Jail for investigation of vehicular homicide and assault. She left the jail Saturday on conditional release.”
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She killed two people with a car while drunk AND IS OUT FREE RIGHT NOW. What the F**K.

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